July 29, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteEvery time there is another data breach, we are asked to change our password at the breached entity. But the reality is that in most cases by the time the victim organization discloses an incident publicly the information has already been harvested many times over by profit-seeking cybercriminals. Here’s a closer look at what typically transpires in the weeks or months before an organization notifies its users about a breached database. Our continued reliance on passwords for authentication has contributed to one toxic data spill or hack after another. One might even say […]
July 26, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, in a photo from a paid press release on Sept. 02, 2020, pitching him as a trustworthy cryptocurrency expert and advisor. One day after last summer’s mass-hack of Twitter, KrebsOnSecurity wrote that 22-year-old British citizen Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor appeared to have been involved in the incident. When the U.S. Justice Department last week announced O’Connor’s arrest and indictment, his alleged role in the Twitter compromise was well covered in the media. But most of the coverage seems to have overlooked the far more sinister criminal charges in the indictment, […]
July 21, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteA 18-year-old Tennessee man who helped set in motion a fraudulent distress call to police that lead to the death of a 60-year-old grandfather in 2020 was sentenced to 60 months in prison today. 60-year-old Mark Herring died of a heart attack after police surrounded his home in response to a swatting attack. Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, Tenn. admitted to conspiring with a group of criminals that’s been “swatting” and harassing people for months in a bid to coerce targets into giving up their valuable Twitter and Instagram usernames. At Sonderman’s sentencing […]
July 20, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Peter Levashov, appearing via Zoom at his sentencing hearing today. A federal judge in Connecticut today handed down a sentence of time served to spam kingpin Peter “Severa” Levashov, a prolific purveyor of malicious and junk email, and the creator of malware strains that infected millions of Microsoft computers globally. Levashov has been in federal custody since his extradition to the United States and guilty plea in 2018, and was facing up to 12 more years in prison. Instead, he will go free under three years of supervised release and a possible fine. […]
July 19, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteBrowse the comments on virtually any story about a ransomware attack and you will almost surely encounter the view that the victim organization could have avoided paying their extortionists if only they’d had proper data backups. But the ugly truth is there are many non-obvious reasons why victims end up paying even when they have done nearly everything right from a data backup perspective. This story isn’t about what organizations do in response to cybercriminals holding their data for hostage, which has become something of a best practice among most of the top […]
July 13, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Microsoft today released updates to patch at least 116 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software. At least four of the vulnerabilities addressed today are under active attack, according to Microsoft. Thirteen of the security bugs quashed in this month’s release earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” rating, meaning they can be exploited by malware or miscreants to seize remote control over a vulnerable system without any help from users. Another 103 of the security holes patched this month were flagged as “important,” which Microsoft assigns to vulnerabilities “whose exploitation could […]
July 9, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteLast summer, financial institutions throughout Texas started reporting a sudden increase in attacks involving well-orchestrated teams that would show up at night, use stolen trucks and heavy chains to rip Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) out of their foundations, and make off with the cash boxes inside. Now it appears the crime — known variously as “ATM smash-and-grab” or “chain gang” attacks — is rapidly increasing in other states. Four different ATM “chain gang” attacks in Texas recently. Image: Texas Bankers Association. The Texas Bankers Association documented at least 139 chain gang attacks against […]
July 8, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Last week cybercriminals deployed ransomware to 1,500 organizations that provide IT security and technical support to many other companies. The attackers exploited a vulnerability in software from Kaseya, a Miami-based company whose products help system administrators manage large networks remotely. Now it appears Kaseya’s customer service portal was left vulnerable until last week to a data-leaking security flaw that was first identified in the same software six years ago. On July 3, the REvil ransomware affiliate program began using a zero-day security hole (CVE-2021-30116) to deploy ransomware to hundreds of IT management […]
July 7, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft on Tuesday issued an emergency software update to quash a security bug that’s been dubbed “PrintNightmare,” a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows that is actively being exploited. The fix comes a week ahead of Microsoft’s normal monthly Patch Tuesday release, and follows the publishing of exploit code showing would-be attackers how to leverage the flaw to break into Windows computers. At issue is CVE-2021-34527, which involves a flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that could be exploited by attackers to run code of their choice on a target’s […]
July 2, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Some of Western Digital’s MyCloud-based data storage devices. Image: WD. Countless Western Digital customers saw their MyBook Live network storage drives remotely wiped in the past month thanks to a bug in a product line the company stopped supporting in 2015, as well as a previously unknown zero-day flaw. But there is a similarly serious zero-day flaw present in a much broader range of newer Western Digital MyCloud network storage devices that will remain unfixed for many customers who can’t or won’t upgrade to the latest operating system. At issue is a […]
July 1, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteFinancial services giant Intuit this week informed 1.4 million small businesses using its QuickBooks Online Payroll and Intuit Online Payroll products that their payroll information will be shared with big-three consumer credit bureau Equifax starting later this year unless customers opt out by the end of this month. Intuit says the change is tied to an “exciting” and “free” new service that will let millions of small business employees get easy access to employment and income verification services when they wish to apply for a loan or line of credit. “In early fall […]
June 30, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteImagine waking up each morning knowing the identities of thousands of people who are about to be mugged for thousands of dollars each. You know exactly when and where each of those muggings will take place, and you’ve shared this information in advance with the authorities each day for a year with no outward indication that they are doing anything about it. How frustrated would you be? A counterfeit check image [redacted] that was intended for a person helping this fraud gang print and mail phony checks tied to a raft of email-based […]
June 25, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteHard drive giant Western Digital is urging users of its MyBook Live brand of network storage drives to disconnect them from the Internet, warning that malicious hackers are remotely wiping the drives using a previously unknown critical flaw that can be triggered by anyone who knows the Internet address of an affected device. One of many similar complaints on Western Digital’s user forum. Earlier this week, Bleeping Computer and Ars Technica pointed to a heated discussion thread on Western Digital’s user forum where many customers complained of finding their MyBook Live and MyBook […]
June 23, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteIn 2015, police departments worldwide started finding ATMs compromised with advanced new “shimming” devices made to steal data from chip card transactions. Authorities in the United States and abroad had seized many of these shimmers, but for years couldn’t decrypt the data on the devices. This is a story of ingenuity and happenstance, and how one former Secret Service agent helped crack a code that revealed the contours of a global organized crime ring. Jeffrey Dant was a special agent at the U.S. Secret Service for 12 years until 2015. After that, Dant […]
June 21, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteAmid multiple recent reports of hackers breaking into and tampering with drinking water treatment systems comes a new industry survey with some sobering findings: A majority of the 52,000 separate drinking water systems in the United States still haven’t inventoried some or any of their information technology systems — a basic first step in protecting networks from cyberattacks. The Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC) — an industry group that tries to facilitate information sharing and the adoption of best practices among utilities in the water sector — surveyed roughly 600 employees […]
June 18, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteIn May 2019, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that the website of mortgage settlement giant First American Financial Corp. [NYSE:FAF] was leaking more than 800 million documents — many containing sensitive financial data — related to real estate transactions dating back 16 years. This week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settled its investigation into the matter after the Fortune 500 company agreed to pay a paltry penalty of less than $500,000. First American Financial Corp. If you bought or sold a property in the last two decades or so, chances are decent that […]
June 16, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteAuthorities in Ukraine this week charged six people alleged to be part of the CLOP ransomware group, a cybercriminal gang said to have extorted more than half a billion dollars from victims. Some of CLOP’s victims this year alone include Stanford University Medical School, the University of California, and University of Maryland. A still shot from a video showing Ukrainian police seizing a Tesla, one of many high-end vehicles seized in this week’s raids on the Clop gang. According to a statement and videos released today, the Ukrainian Cyber Police charged six defendants with various […]
June 8, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft today released another round of security updates for Windows operating systems and supported software, including fixes for six zero-day bugs that malicious hackers already are exploiting in active attacks. June’s Patch Tuesday addresses just 49 security holes — about half the normal number of vulnerabilities lately. But what this month lacks in volume it makes up for in urgency: Microsoft warns that bad guys are leveraging a half-dozen of those weaknesses to break into computers in targeted attacks. Among the zero-days are: –CVE-2021-33742, a remote code execution bug in a Windows HTML […]
June 7, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteThe U.S. Department of Justice said today it has recovered $2.3 million worth of Bitcoin that Colonial Pipeline paid to ransomware extortionists last month. The funds had been sent to DarkSide, a ransomware-as-a-service syndicate that disbanded after a May 14 farewell message to affiliates saying its Internet servers and cryptocurrency stash were seized by unknown law enforcement entities. On May 7, the DarkSide ransomware gang sprang its attack against Colonial, which ultimately paid 75 Bitcoin (~$4.4 million) to its tormentors. The company said the attackers only hit its business IT networks — not […]
June 7, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteKrebsOnSecurity recently had occasion to contact the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the process of doing so, I encountered a small snag: The FSB’s website said in order to communicate with them securely, I needed to download and install an encryption and virtual private networking (VPN) appliance that is flagged by at least 20 antivirus products as malware. The FSB headquarters at Lubyanka Square, Moscow. Image: Wikipedia. The reason I contacted the FSB — one of the successor agencies to the […]
May 28, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteFlorian “The Shark” Tudor, the alleged ringleader of a prolific ATM skimming gang that siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from bank accounts of tourists visiting Mexico over the last eight years, was arrested in Mexico City on Thursday in response to an extradition warrant from a Romanian court. Florian Tudor, at a 2020 press conference in Mexico in which he asserted he was a legitimate businessman and not a mafia boss. Image: OCCRP. Tudor, a native of Craiova, Romania, moved to Mexico to set up Top Life Servicios, an ATM servicing company […]
May 21, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteOne of the oldest scams around — the fake job interview that seeks only to harvest your personal and financial data — is on the rise, the FBI warns. Here’s the story of a recent LinkedIn impersonation scam that led to more than 100 people getting duped, and one almost-victim who decided the job offer was too-good-to-be-true. Last week, someone began began posting classified notices on LinkedIn for different design consulting jobs at Geosyntec Consultants, an environmental engineering firm based in the Washington, D.C. area. Those who responded were told their application for […]
May 19, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMany online services allow users to reset their passwords by clicking a link sent via SMS, and this unfortunately widespread practice has turned mobile phone numbers into de facto identity documents. Which means losing control over one thanks to a divorce, job termination or financial crisis can be devastating. Even so, plenty of people willingly abandon a mobile number without considering the potential fallout to their digital identities when those digits invariably get reassigned to someone else. New research shows how fraudsters can abuse wireless provider websites to identify available, recycled mobile numbers […]